Experience, journal, art,
2011 riots, I was there... (Diary)
August 2011. A clear summer evening, I was shopping in Manchester centre. Commuters and shoppers filled the streets, as usual. But, this evening, I saw, there were others; an unusually large number of young men and boys (mostly) hanging out, neither obviously shopping nor commuting, and groups of riot officers stationed around Piccadilly Gardens in full gear, seemingly waiting. Two armies. The cast of a drama yet to unfold.
It was Tuesday 9th August 2011. Five days prior a 29 year old man of mixed race, Mark Duggan, had been shot dead by police in Tottenham. The death sparked riots in London which spread to other urban centres including Bristol, Nottingham and Birmingham. However Manchester had remained relatively unscathed until now – the riot police undoubtedly there as a precaution.
Shopping done, I went to a meditation centre two streets away; they were holding a drop-in session this evening. But when I arrived I was surprised to find the main door shut with a handwritten note sellotaped to it saying ‘sorry, meditation is cancelled’. What to do now? Go home?
But it was 5.30pm and the motorway would be congested with commuter traffic – I didn’t want to crawl along in a congested rat race, so I walked to a Café in Market Street to get a coffee. The M62 will be quieter in an hours' time…
I asked the barista in Cafe Nero what time they were closing tonight - ‘Eight’ she said – plenty of time for an Americano and chocolate brownie. I took out my laptop – 2011 tech – and, fired with caffeine and sugar, reckoned I could do an hour on my PhD thesis. (I studied in cafés).
Except, shortly after, the same barista who served my drink began shouting – urgently – to the floor of customers
‘Get to the back! Now! Everyone go to the back!' ...Yelling at us to go to the back of the cafe WTF?!
Cue a frantic scramble; chairs scraping the floor, alarmed faces, spilt drinks. I wrapped the brownie in a napkin and rammed it and my laptop into my backpack and fled, joining a congested rat race to nowhere – the back of a Café Nero. Out of the blue a crowd burst in from the street – there was a frantic kerfuffle at the front of the café then they ran straight towards us, crashing through tables – not stopping to buy drinks, or even slowing, but straight at us. Those seconds passed slowly. We crowded at the back of the café – cornered – like sheep set upon by wolves.
A wide-eyed, breathless woman laden with shopping bags was one of those who ran in. She slumped on a chair near me
‘People are smashing windows around Primark!’ she blurted - she and the people that burst in were spooked pedestrians seeking safety. The Nero staff hurriedly dragged tables inside and shouted to more people to ‘get in! get in!’, then locked the main doors: we were safe – locked in a Café Nero.
For the next ten minutes we watched through the big front windows as chaos unfolded in Market Street; skittish crowds running, commuters dashing, groups of young people loitering, riot police strutting and mingling in the throng. The atmosphere was febrile, confused, tense - a balmy evening gone barmy.
Eventually we emerged from the cafe back into Market Street. A policewoman smiled at me ‘Everything’s ok’ she said, trying to sound reassuring, but it seemed as if she was reassuring herself as much as us. Tension. But aren’t people running scared and smashing windows? They were, though I couldn’t see them just then. Next to me two teens posed for photos with the officers in riot gear – presumably reassured. All around retail staff frenetically locked doors, lowered shutters and boarded up shop fronts; and shoppers and commuters hurried away. The same time those two tribes, the hooded youths and riot police, waiting cast members in an unfolding drama, gathered, increased their number, waited for their time to come.
It had come.
Everything wasn't ok.
The motorway would still be congested at this time, and I didn’t want to go sit in my car, so I was reluctant to head straight to me car. My mood had changed, was changing, from alarm to a sort of adrenaline-fuelled curiosity. Tense and vigilant, but with a sense of control - being dressed in jeans, trainers and a hoodie, I blended in with the young crowd. I turned on my phone camera, and followed the officers and hoodie crowd, filming.
Outside the Arndale shopping centre a boy of about 8 chucked a brick at a window and made a glistening spider’s web. There were broken windows everywhere: the Arndale Centre doors, Thomas Cook, Miss Selfridge, TK Maxx… An M&S door, wrenched open, hung on it hinges. I hadn’t seen this many smashed windows since a tornado ripped through my home town in 2005.
A busker outside the Arndale slapped his drums with unusual fervour; a defiant heartbeat punching the face of tyranny, a few danced to his vibe; an impromptu peace protest at a festival of crime. Police everywhere directed people, restrained them or questioned them.
Then the crowd turned towards where I filmed – police on horseback had advanced from the bottom of Market Street driving the rioters back up through the street towards me, some people running, walking or on bikes. They drove the crowd along Corporation Street, Withy Grove then back along the High Street; I was forced to follow, moving warily through the pandemonium with my backpack worn across my front. Tension charged the air. A helicopter thundered overhead while lightning strikes of frustration discharged into the streets. ‘Come into Manchester, its better here’
I heard a boy say into his phone. Alongside me a man wielded a folded umbrella like a baton, the front of a Tesco Local with smashed and people – looters – shouted 'just go in’. A man head-butted a window of M&S, risking sacrifice of his brain to a stony corporate intransigence; dysfunctional and tragically futile – this was a festival of rebellion; of rebels without a cause or explicit political message – but nonetheless highly political, because riots always beg questions of the system and parliament.
Some time later, I can't be sure how long, outside the Cafe Nero, Market Street was changed. No shoppers or commuters. No buses or trams. One tram, stationary and empty read 'not in service' – abnormal for time of day. Cars stood still, some with windows smashed. Smoke billowed from Miss Selfridge where a manikin’s dress had been set alight in the window.
I kept to the back of an the amassing crowd. I sensed anticipation, that something was afoot. Riot police surrounded and the raised platform of the tram stop, like actors taking positions centre stage. The police talked into their radios or to each other directly, seemingly organising. The amassing crowd, which I stood to the rear of, outnumbering them by about 20 to one. The police formed a line across the street in front of the Café Nero, then at the same time, slowly, as if rehearsed, raised their batons into the air. The crowd was feverish and twitchy with anticipation. One policeman climbed onto the front of the raised platform and stood tall before the crowd, carrying a loudhailer ‘Go home now. Go home’ he shouted, his voice with a desperate edge, taught with fear, I thought. Heroic. He was flanked on either side by other riot police, stood facing the crowd, resolute, batons aloft, as if ready to charge. Then they did – they ran straight towards us – chasing, waving the batons.
I had one thought: what's the best way back to my car?
The evening waned, I drove west along a clear M62 into the remnants of a set sun. Overhead a vast serene sky, seemingly unperturbed like a meditation, contrasted with the world I’d left. I noticed I was exhausted – the 90 minutes of tension and vigilance proved surprisingly taxing. So that’s what it’s like… to be amongst rioters, to be riot police, to record the scene, to be in those scenes of disorder they show on the news?
I thought of little else over the next 24 hours, because, it seemed I needed to process the feelings and images that tension had etched into my memory. Next day, in a coffee shop again near the Liverpool waterfront, I told the woman sat next to me about last night, given Liverpool had not seen as much disorder. My laptop was out on the table, and once again my PhD thesis went neglected as I captured the experience in a diary.
